What can we learn from the Mississippi State football team’s win over Arizona Saturday night? Let me break it down to three lessons:
Beside finding out Zach Arnett has a potty mouth, we did learn some things both good and bad on Saturday.
And for all of the vitriol on Twitter, I TOLD YOU THERE WOULD BE YELLING AT THE TV.
This isn’t three lessons about how bad our team is and why we’re going to lose the rest of our games or why the Bulldog’s performance means we won’t be bowling for the first time since 2009.
There were some good things that came out of this (surprisingly?) close game.
Mississippi State football vs. Arizona lesson 1:
The Mississippi State Bulldogs can still run the dang ball
I’ll be honest, I wasn’t sure how well we would run the ball against an Arizona team that added multiple transfers along the defensive line.
And sure, the Arizona defense combined for 6 tackles behind the line and 2 sacks, but Woody Marks had his second 100-yard game in as many starts. Marks, Seth Davis and Simeon Price combined for 5.5 yards per carry en route to 165 rushing yards for our top 3 running backs.
Marks was a force in this game, adding 4 receptions for 32 yards to his 123 yard rushing total. In a game where the offense wasn’t clicking on all cylinders, Jo’Quavious was the brightest of bright spots. In all, he accounted for over half of MSU’s offensive production.
It wasn’t all rainbows and sunshine though. Two of our top rushers from Week 1, Mike Wright and Creed Whittemore, combined for 1 carry for -3 yards.
Speaking of…